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There are several vendors already offering gloves that work with touch screens.

-jcr

These are awesome in protecting hearing but letting the full audio spectrum through - and a steal at 12.95:

http://www.jr.com/etymotic-research/pe/ETY_ER20SMBC/

I use these (they had some clear ones, but I guess baby blue will work) when I go to concerts. Personally, there's a Movie Tavern (food + beer right to your table) and they keep the volume at a reasonable level.

Try buying a needle for your 60's record player now....

http://www.jr.com/category/audio/accessories/turntables/cartridges-and-stylii/

I think this is news to lots of users of Ubuntu.. A huge collective WTF??

My wife got a new computer a few years ago that came bundled with a printer. The printer came with drivers for XP and Vista only. There were no drivers for Win 98, 2K pro, ME (don't laugh.. Wife's laptop for school)

Our printers are all connected to the wireless router using a dongle printserver. We returned the printer for incompatibility with the rest of the Windows machines on the Lan, not the Linux machine. The troll for printer compatiblity is shooting a dead horse. Any machine in the house on either the wired or wirless lan can easily print to any printer on the lan.

We use printservers like this one on all our printers. It saves ink. It makes using the laser instead of a inkjet easy. No cables are required to print from laptops. The LAN, Printserver, and printers are all compatible with Linux. Windows often requires install drivers for the printer and printserver. Linux simply requires entering the printserver IP address and select a compatible driver. The port for the laser is for example located at //192.168.1.101/prn on our LAN. Getting Vista to connect to it took two hours and a google search.

Vista wants a printserver name and doesn't like a printserver on an IP address or one not in your DNS server. Printer compatibility isses are not a Linux issue. Windows is much harder to connect. Vista also required a registry tweak to connect to a Simple Share Printserver. That took 8 hours of my day off and a google search to connect my wife's new laptop to our fileserver. Linux could connect either using Netbios SMB, or NFS. Vista couldn't authenticate to login.

http://www.jr.com/trendnet/pe/TRD_TE100P1P/ Network printserver
http://www.simpleshare.com/ Network attached storage

I walked into J&R in downtown Manhattan. They had not only a large selection of joysticks, but also accelerators, specialized FPS controllers, and a good selection of PC joypads.

Chain stores will rarely carry that sort of thing.

Genuine question from someone wanting an iPod alternative - Which ones are fine and work well?

I have bought several from Sansa, and I like them.

Sansa makes a little player with a clip on it. Unlike an Apple iPod Shuffle, it has a little display and you can navigate through menus. The 2GB version is around $40; I'll never pay $80 for a Shuffle.

The Sansa players work great in Linux; just plug them in and they show up as a disk drive. You can probably get software to manage your tunes a la iTunes, but I'm one of those weirdos who thinks copying music files by hand just isn't that hard. The newer Sansa players (such as the Clip) can play Ogg Vorbis and FLAC! Most importantly, the audio quality is quite good. They come with not-too-horrible ear buds, but I have tried them with my Sennheiser HD-555 headphones and they sound really clean.

http://www.jr.com/sandisk/pe/SAD_MX11R02GK/

Point me to a local, non-national chain store to buy a netbook or MID

http://www.jr.com/

Be sure you get one of the models with the nVidia graphics card, then. Notice that the cheapest model, the $599 N10EA1, does NOT have it:
http://www.jr.com/product/productListing.jsp?Ntt=asus+n10

I get USB chargable devices.

First of all I try to get things that will charge via USB.

For instance your Nintendo DS IS USB chargeable. I don't have a DS, but I do have the GBA equivalent to this nice Pelican charger kit. I use the cigarette lighter to USB adapter to charge other low wattage devices, like my iRiver when I'm in the car, not just my GBA SP and GBA Micro (it wasn't powerful enough for any of my previous phones though).

I bought a PSP a few days ago, I know it's also USB chargeable, I just haven't picked up an adapter yet.

My Jabra JX10 doesn't take much wattage to charge, neither does my Skype phone I use the USB ports on the back of my KVM to charge those. The KVM is powered, so thats 1 power port for 3 devices.

I've changed phones many times in the last year, my company keeps swapping them out on me. All three of the phones they've given me in the past year, an older Motorola Q, a Blackberry Curve, and now the older model iPhone all use USB to charge. For the iPhone I actually bought an alarm clock to handle charging that.

I used to think the idea of using USB to power things was ludicrous, mostly because the first things I saw utilizing USB power were fans, lights, and mini vacs, just stupid little power suckers. Now that I've actually been utilizing it I've been freeing up the power strip. Things like this and this actually seem worth buying.

... and I love the thing. I use (the left-hand model) with my Kinesis keyboard, and for the first time in my life i haven't had those annoying pains when at the computer for long time.

Kinesis (I think) will actually let you try the mouse for a while and then return it (money-back satisfaction guarantee) although there's a possibility that it's just for thei keyboards (although I thought it included the mouse also) -- might be worth paying the little extra than you can get it for elsewhere. J&R was the cheapest I've seen it (and I've got less qualms buying from them than some place like Amazon as someone else had suggested).

Pick some of these up:

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=40 69679

They attenuate frequencies evenly across the range; I use mine to practice on the drums. Much better than cotton or "shooting" earplugs. I've not worn them to a concert yet, but I haven't been to one in some time... Even got the wife a set just in case we do get to a concert this year.

I'm in the central Ohio area. I can't find a publicly accessible webpage with the costs from my normal supplier but Home Depot sells the cat5e at$91.00/1000ft and plenum cable at $219/1000ft. They are in line with what I pay. I can't find the costs for cat6. Are you sure your not buying 500ft runs instead of 1000ft at $55? It seems to be closer to what I would pay. I don't understand what would make the cost almost double for my area.

Well, I take that back, I just found 1000ft cat5 (I don't think it is E) for $69.99 Of course it is stranded. You would want solid wire for inside the walls and use the stranded for patching from the wall plate to the computer. You also have to make sure your using the right type of RJ45 connector on this, they have one rated for stranded cable and another for solid. The difference I think is the number of cleats that make contact when you crimp them. 2 cleats are for one and three are for the other, I don't remember which though. Interestingly they have Cat6 (solid) cable for $149 here.

Now I know it is hard to get an accurate reading from different sites with different prices. But this is in line with What I can find around here. Cat6 is typically around 40-50% more for the cable. PLenum cable is usually double or 3 times the amount of regular cable and if you need shielded (I know UTP is unshielded twisted pair, but you sometimes need to remove interference)you will spend about the same.

I'm going to check again come Monday, Someone suggested the price differences are only about 10% now. So it might be cheaper then I think. My supplier will price match if I can find it cheaper somewhere else. But I have to make sure it is the same stuff.

I'm in the central Ohio area. I can't find a publicly accessible webpage with the costs from my normal supplier but Home Depot sells the cat5e at$91.00/1000ft and plenum cable at $219/1000ft. They are in line with what I pay. I can't find the costs for cat6. Are you sure your not buying 500ft runs instead of 1000ft at $55? It seems to be closer to what I would pay. I don't understand what would make the cost almost double for my area.

Well, I take that back, I just found 1000ft cat5 (I don't think it is E) for $69.99 Of course it is stranded. You would want solid wire for inside the walls and use the stranded for patching from the wall plate to the computer. You also have to make sure your using the right type of RJ45 connector on this, they have one rated for stranded cable and another for solid. The difference I think is the number of cleats that make contact when you crimp them. 2 cleats are for one and three are for the other, I don't remember which though. Interestingly they have Cat6 (solid) cable for $149 here.

Now I know it is hard to get an accurate reading from different sites with different prices. But this is in line with What I can find around here. Cat6 is typically around 40-50% more for the cable. PLenum cable is usually double or 3 times the amount of regular cable and if you need shielded (I know UTP is unshielded twisted pair, but you sometimes need to remove interference)you will spend about the same.

I'm going to check again come Monday, Someone suggested the price differences are only about 10% now. So it might be cheaper then I think. My supplier will price match if I can find it cheaper somewhere else. But I have to make sure it is the same stuff.

* stay away from loud concerts, parties, dance halls

I play drums (with myself, I'm so lonely) - it gets amazingly loud in a short period of time if you have no earplugs in. In addition, I've been to concerts where my ears physically start hurting. I end up going home at that point.

I've got a new solution though:

Etymotic Research ER20BP

I just bought 2 more sets of these since I lost my first set. Me and the wife are going to a concert in a few weeks and I want to be prepared. These plugs help you hear the full frequency range of hearing, just 20db less. In contrast, most ear plugs really squash the highs out....

A good many of those have poor transfers also

I've notice that for older films. This is especialy true for DVD's under $2. As a collector of the cartoons I grew up with, 2 hours of early animation at $99cents a copy is a much better value to me than 1950's rock and roll at $12.95 for 48 minutes of stuff.

Let's face it. I can buy a fairly recent (less than 5 years old) DVD for less than $6 new. Ice age and Ever After I just picked up at the grocery store for 5.95 each. Have you checked the price on 20 year old music on CD's? The RIAA hasn't got a clue. I do buy something other than overpriced CD's.

http://www.shop.com/op/~Dark_Side_of_the_Moon_SACD _CD_(Pink_Floyd)-prod-29774059-38976525?sourceid=2 98 Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Now $32.99 was $47.38

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1015 357 Beatles White Album Your Price: $28.99

http://www.amazon.com/Night-at-Opera-Queen/dp/B000 000OAN Queen Night at the Opera Price: $10.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

Now some older classis movies for comparison;

http://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Roof-Special-Topol/d p/B00005N7YZ Fiddler on the Roof 17 used & new available from $16.95

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/search-ng.gsp?searc h_constraint=0&search_query=star%20wars%20dvds&adi d=0100000031361378202498 Star Wars trilogy 3 movies for about $10 each. List Price: $49.98
Our Price: $33.88

The RIAA can't figure out why I don't buy CD's..

More hints.. here is a list of DVD's at 5.99 Page 1 of 756 titles.
http://www.jr.com/JRSectionView.process?N=13326+16 5&Ne=160#Budget+DVD's

Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.

There are people who do pay premium prices for premium content. There is a market for Cadilacs and Mercedez Benz, but the real money is in Wal * Mart. Trying to make a Mercedes the standard car of choice is going to have a tough run against the Toyota's.

The HD DVD manufactures are seeing this right now. Hummers were a hot item as was the Escalade. Casino Royale is a hot item, but it's not overtaking conventional DVD's anytime soon much like Hummers and Escalades are not overtaking Accords and Camerys. This is reflected in the number of unsold high priced titles.

Here in NYC you can't find a PS3 or a Wii anywhere that I know of. Every store has a sign stating so in the front window and asking about it will only give you looks as though you're from Mars. Most of the stores are reporting online that things such as the SIXAXIS controller are out of stock. www.jr.com says they're out of stock but I just went to the store today and they have about 10 or so left (I bought three myself), so I think they're putting a priority on in-store demand. Also, the DS selection is horrible - I couldn't find BrainAge or MarioKart in the store at all. Surprisingly most people were buying PS2 games - it was kind of funny actually. I saw a lot of DDR and Guitar Hero packs in people's hands as I think they were having a sale on them.

I bet in the more rural areas it's easier to find the PS3 as people probably don't have as much money to throw around. The PS3 is still going for well above retail on Ebay so I doubt very much that there's a much lower demand than reported.

First, to reduce the sound:

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=40 69679

These do an excellent job of just reducing the sound across the spectrum, so your 90db server room turns into 70db. In fact, I use these plugs while drumming to be able to hear properly (foam plugs kill the highs). An additional help with these plugs is that speech is still very clear.

I've also used some Sony in-ear headphones, and am thinking of ordering some of the Sennheiser phones. Now, these don't have active cancellation in them, but they do form a good fit (similar to the earplugs above) and can keep ambient noise to a comfortable level - but watch yourself; you may find youself still turning the music up too far to compensate for that little last bit, and cause more damage to your hearing.

I'd say earplugs would be 10x better; and with the earplugs above, you could play some music in the room and hear it properly... only problem there would be bugging others with your choice of music.

Simple and inexpensive solution:
Get a set of old-fashioned, fully enclosed, around-the-ear headphones. It blocks a lot of the outside noise, so you don't have to crank it as loud. And it keeps most of your own noise from escaping.

It used to be that anything short of the the hundred dollar + ones sounded awful. But there are now a few inexpensive ones that sound remarkably good.

You might be thinking, "Why not use a more modern and lighter weight noise cancelling headphone?". Two reasons: 1) more expensive, and 2) only blocks noise one way. Still a good solution, just 2nd best unless you need the lighter weight for portable use like riding your bike or the train to work. But for sitting at your desk, a well-chosen enclosed headphone is unbeatable.

I will probably get flamed for this, but why is everyone waiting and waiting and waiting for the iPod phone. Hate to break it to you, but I really do not see the iPod phone happening anytime soon, especially with Motorola's (crap) MP3 phones. I know this may seem like an insane idea to all the anti-Sony people out there, but why not purchase a Sony Ericsson W810i Quad Band cell phone. It was everything I was looking for in a cell phone: ~First and foremost, its a GSM quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 cell phone. It gets amazing quality calls and has amazing reception with T-Mobile. ~Second, an MP3 player - the SE W810i has an amazing MP3 player with a superb equalizer (that actually does something versus the iPod one that doesn't) The retail version comes with a 512MB Memory Stick Pro Duo (same used in the PSP). I then went to eBay and got a 4GB version for $70, shipped. This gives me the availability of keeping enough music to satisfy me. ~Third, it has a built-in 2 megapixel camera capable of 1632x1224 pictures. It also takes decent video. You can load your own MP4 files on the phone as well to watch. This isnt an advertisment for this phone, I am just trying to tell people there are better options than a ROKR/SLVR from Motorola. Plus, this phone was designed (this the Walkman branding) around music. The stock earphones are in-canal phones that are loud, clear and give GREAT bass response. The best part of all of this is that with a new subscription from T-Mobile, the phone is only $150 through JandR.com http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=41 28735 This is truly one of the finest phones out there and it more than enough to satisfy most music junkies. When I need the storage capacity, I have my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra that uses a standard laptop 2.5" HDD. I swapped out the stock 30GB for a 100GB and it works perfectly. I have found iPods are unreliable, fragile, and expensive compared to the rest of the industry. I dont need to pay $400 for a 60GB iPod.

Blu-Ray R and RW discs are available in single and dual layer versions( here, and here.

I couldn't find any dual layer HD-DVD media for sale.

Non-Sony memorysticks are no more expensive than Secure Digital

Please post links, thx. My 1GB SD card was $30 USD at the local electronics store. A memory stick that size would cost more than twice as much. There's just no competition for memoy sticks... the "Non-Sony" ones just mean Sandisk, because that's the only company licensed to male them. Compare this to SD, which is an open, competitive standard, and there's just no competition whatsoever.

For example:
Sony 2GB Memory Stick: $149 USD
PNY 2GB SD Card: $54.99 USD

The PNY card was just the first one that showed up, whereas I had to dig even to find a Memory Stick that could hold a measly 2GB (yessir, the PSP sure did kill the iPod, all you need is $350 to get the storage of a $150 iPod Nano). J&R (the store) is also pretty competive on price, so its not as if they favor one or the other (as other New Yorkers can attest).

And price notwithstanding, what else even supports SD besides other Sony products? I can swap SD cards into my camera or Palm Pilot, but Memory Sticks are useless since I don't by into the 100% Sony "lifestyle". And nevermind that Memory Stick cards have the idiotic Magic Gate(tm) crap, while SD card vendors gave up on "secure" years ago.

Non-Sony memorysticks are no more expensive than Secure Digital

Please post links, thx. My 1GB SD card was $30 USD at the local electronics store. A memory stick that size would cost more than twice as much. There's just no competition for memoy sticks... the "Non-Sony" ones just mean Sandisk, because that's the only company licensed to male them. Compare this to SD, which is an open, competitive standard, and there's just no competition whatsoever.

For example:
Sony 2GB Memory Stick: $149 USD
PNY 2GB SD Card: $54.99 USD

The PNY card was just the first one that showed up, whereas I had to dig even to find a Memory Stick that could hold a measly 2GB (yessir, the PSP sure did kill the iPod, all you need is $350 to get the storage of a $150 iPod Nano). J&R (the store) is also pretty competive on price, so its not as if they favor one or the other (as other New Yorkers can attest).

And price notwithstanding, what else even supports SD besides other Sony products? I can swap SD cards into my camera or Palm Pilot, but Memory Sticks are useless since I don't by into the 100% Sony "lifestyle". And nevermind that Memory Stick cards have the idiotic Magic Gate(tm) crap, while SD card vendors gave up on "secure" years ago.

J & R in New York City has the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-Ray for pre-order at US$999. See http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=40 92871 /not associated with J&R

Or you wear headphones, which is what I do. These are really nice.

Except I'd rather eventually watch King Kong on HD-DVD on a 30" than a 19" monitor. Before you tell me to get an HDTV, I'll point out that most of the lower-end models don't actually do true 1080i, let alone 1080p. Furthermore, I don't have the budget to buy a 1080p HDTV and two 19" LCDs. So the sweet spot in the middle could be the Dell 30".

I did not say that open-source software is "innovative". In practice, I find that it's mostly derivative. However, one [almost always] does not pay for open-source software. One does pay for Microsoft Office. With that payment comes the expectation of not only superior (to free solutions) documentation, but documentation that is constantly improving.

"The reason why Apple is unwilling to work with artist directly is due to the court case that they are having with the Apple Record company, think Beetles, and that Apple is not suppose to become a record company. Signing up artist directly would make them a record company."

I'm aware of the court case, and the reason for the reluctance of Apple to sign artists directly..I didn't go into this part in detail to try to keep my post from rambling. Perhaps I should have.

"As far as I know, Apple has put down contract on the table for any record lable that wants to come on board, as long as its $.99 a song. That is why I say greed is probably the reason why. That even though indy artist don't mind, the labels they are on do. I know the labels are going to try and get their artist as much money too. So its some what a catch 22 for the label, get the artist on iTunes but don't get them much money, or hold out for more money, but don't get on iTunes. I would go with the first and hope full more money later, but who knows."

This is a good point for those artists that are signed with a small label, although I think the motivation for the small label itself to gain more exposure, as do the indie artists, would tend to mitigate any tendency to price themselves and the artists out.

"You are an artist, but have you asked your manager or exec at your lable why they haven't tried to get you on iTunes if you are not already."

The band I am in has contracted our own recording and production services independently, and are not contracted to any label.

We sell most of our CDs at our shows. We are currently looking at our options with regards to CDBaby and Taxi, as well as the small label of the producer we contracted the recording/production of our CD with (Dale Kelly, Universal Distribution...produces a series of CDs, a sampler of small up-and-coming blues artists called "Along the Blues Highway" http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=39 10574), but we're in no hurry. We are an original blues band, and are all over 45 years old with decades of experience each playing bars, clubs, bluesfests, etc. We do well on bookings and CD sales at shows.

We write and play for the music, and are not hugely ambitious. We're happy having control, and are approaching any promotional oportunities carefully, with the goal of minimum loss of that control.

If we find or create the right situation that results in our material being available through iTunes on our terms, great! That, however, is not an end in itself, and frankly we won't lose any sleep if we never appear on iTunes or get a deal with a label, large or small.

Great points, and well thought out. Thanks for the reply, so nice to have a *discussion* rather than a /. flame war! :D

Strat

They think that something like this, costs this much.

(Yes, by posting this on /., WalMart should give me a commission.)

Other answers: Habit, fear that it's not simple, and comfort of using tape systems over the years.

In the long run, you'll probably end up cooler and save money on your electric bill. Seriously...

j&r

Their real shuffle competition is $150 US, has a gig of space, and a display. It needs a AAA battery to run but does NOT have FM radio.

1. Buy the mouse and the stick.
2. Create a 512 meg partition. Install windows 95 and all the old games you want (might I recommend flight simulator?)
3. Copy the partition onto the memory card.
4. Boot from mouse.
5. Profit!

WalMart's 460 TB of data, shared among about 300M Internet users, would spread about 1.5MB to each person. That is, of course, a tiny amount of data - probably just the indices on each person's inbox, let alone their email data itself. Each of those people average storage capacity is over 20GB, on new computers, excluding upgrades which are probably usually about 80GB. So just typical end user computers alone account for at least 10,000 - 40,000 times WalMart's big data dump. And then of course there are all the other servers on the Internet, like the SABRE airline reservation system, the US Federal databases of publications, Google's image cache, all the albums and other MP3/SHN/FLACs in P2P, and of course the endless stream of porn.

WalMart is trying to make itself look like it is turning its customer data into success, and benefits for its customers. That serves to downplay its reliance on labor exploitation, monopolistic competition when it enters local markets, and political favors that structure labor and market laws to give it a competitive edge. And WalMart might just be believing the IT sales hype that it spends millions of dollars on. But that's no reason we should buy their IT BS as much as we seem to buy their wares.

-Guarddog is less user friendly than Zonealarm, so I don't use it.

$40 gets you a NAT hardware solution that gets all script kiddies off your back.
ZoneAlarm is $70

-I used to use "apt-get upgrade" to patch security holes. Unfortunately this also turns on any updated daemon that was off, making my system both slower and less secure.
-Turn off unnecessary daemons? Is there a program I can apt get that will make let me do this quickly? preferably something that would explain what each daemon is and why I would need it without jargon?

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debia n- howto/ch3.en.html#s3.6
My preferred solutions from that reference is
"move the script file (/etc/init.d/_service_name_) to another name (for example /etc/init.d/OFF._service_name_)"
for example:
mv /etc/init.d/apache /etc/init.d/OFF.apache

-A user friendly cryptographic instant messenger that will handling all this "key" bullshit for me automagically?

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
http://gaim-encryp tion.sourceforge.net/

from http://www.knoppix.org
"KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos."

For maximum security you want a minimal install where you add only the things you want. Knoppix is an excellent distribution for the stated purposes above, or for determining which device drivers you want etc. However, it really does put everything but the kitchen sink in your system to achieve that. Still, the above suggestions will make your box a lot more secure so you can get back to whatever it is you enjoy.

You're going to tell me that every part in the bottom-of-the-barrel crap case, motherboard, etc., you're going to buy for your build-it-yourself Athlon64 are just as good as what Apple is using in the Power Mac G5?

Actually, the ASUS boards out there are top of the line.

Look at the K8VSE,
Hypertransport (that's an 800mhz bus).
Up to 3 gigs of PC3200
Built in wifi
2 SATA RAID
gigabit ethernet
2 firewire
6 USB 2.0
digital audio out

All for $120.

But even better than that, you can actually get an AMD64 in a notebook, unlike the G5.

Look at HP zv5270us,
AMD64 3400
15.4" widescreen
512megs of ram
80 gig drive
DVD+RW
802.11g
GeForce4 440go
3 USB 2.0 ports
1 firewire port

For $1650 on newegg.
Plus I think it looks very sexy

I have a 17" Gateway M675 and it fits perfectly (with adapter, cables, coolpad and even room for books and other sundry school items) in a Crumpler "Very Busy Man" messenger bag. It is well-padded, there are a great number of pockets, and the straps are very sturdy. The drawback is the price (110+ at eBags, Amazon, etc) but I got mine at J&R Music & Computer World for $80. It is so very worth the $80, although I know the original poster was looking something in the $50 range...this is so much better than any Targus or standard laptop bag I've ever used. Plus, it looks cool. :)

This is why you need to turn Dynamic Range Compression on in your DVD player.. it will limit the dynamic range (based on data in the AC3 tracks), instead of just normalizing the audio. The feature should be present on any DVD player.

I've had a few DVD players and the DRC setting on them never really seemed to have much of an effect.

I suspect there are some psychological and physiological effects of volume changes that aren't being accounted for (loud scene cuts to a quiet scene), and/or a cheap chipset.

Has anyone here used one of the aftermarket volume regulators?

The price of Compact Flash really took a nose dive in the last month. You can now get a Sandisk Ultra II 1 GB solid state card for under $100.

J&R computer world in NY City sells Apple. Their prices are competitive and the help is as good as you get in any retail stores these days. http://www.jr.com/JRSectionView.process?EndecaURL= t&N=500011

I've bought two turntables in the last year for less than $20 each. Granted, both were used...one via eBay and on at a stoop sale.

If that doesn't do it for you, you can always get a new one for way under $100...take this one as an example.

That's probably equivalent to a standard low end component CD player. And most new vinyl (yes, they still release new records - mostly indie and club stuff, but some major label as well) is less expensive than the equivalent CD. I don't even need to bother mentioning that used vinyl can be found lots of places and is usually a hell of a deal...unless it's something rare and valuable, it will probably cost less than $3.00.